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A Shadow of the Future
After hours of carousing and gambling, Nadu is thrown in jail on charges of disorderly conduct. Taigus finds and visits Exal's safehouse in the Mutant District, and decides against turning him in. He learns that Exal's crew discovered suspicious runes in the city's sewers and that they were drawn with magic by a Councilman named Fenslin Rook. Exal wants to expose him as the conniving dark wizard he is, ever since the retired mercenary was betrayed and almost killed by him several years ago. However, the Council doesn't believe Rook to be a wizard of any kind. Taigus offers his help in taking down Rook, then buys a six-shooter. Meanwhile, Roach, Hachiman, Lau, and Kojo are arrested at Demek's house and taken to the same cell as Nadu. Huddled in the corner and fast asleep, the party fails to notice him as their strange dwarven cleric. Hachiman pries apart the bars, allowing a head or a small enough person to pass through. Lau puts Kojo up to the challenge, asking him to investigate the cells next to them. He spots a cloaked figure in the leftmost cell, but soon forgets what he was even doing, leading the party to assume this figure is one of the ones they had faced earlier in Demek's house. A plan is concocted. Roach calls in one of the guards and informs him of the figure in the leftmost cell. The guard is surprised to find the figure in there, and upon looking away, fails to remember the figure entirely. He then shows the party his notes, with "Don't forget the prisoner" written several times. Roach, to the best of his ability, puts his memory onto paper and draws one of these figures. He then asks the guard to bring the drawing to his superior, so copies can be produced and placed around the city. As this is happening, Taigus returns to Nimrya and convinces the Lieutenant that Exal is dead. Trusting Taigus implicity, she believes this lie and says that the Council may want to speak with him about the seditionist's death. After paying the contract, Nimrya seductively traces her finger across Taigus's shoulder and leads him to her quarters. In the morning, Roach, Hachiman, Lau, Nadu, and Kojo are personally released from jail by Lieutenant Nimrya and her cohort. She informs Roach that the city's scribes and artists tirelessly worked overnight to make dozens of wanted posters featuring his image of the masked figures. The party then meets with the cloaked prisoner next to their cell and discovers that she is none other than Tenaia Nailo, Lau's missing sister. She informs the party that the masked people are known as the Fatesworn, a religious order of time travellers who see it as their duty to guide history according to their will. She was once one of them, before growing disillusioned with their ideology and travelling away. Roach instantly recognizes her boots as being the exact ones that left the bootprints outside Demek's house, and he asks her why she tried locking them in the cellar. Explaining the nature of time travel to Roach and Hachiman, Tenaia says that she did not lock them within the cellar, but that the presence of her bootprints means a future version of herself travelled back in time and did. The exact reason why is unclear, but Tenaia deduces that she might have go back in time to protect them from a Fatesworn assassin, called an Ephemeral, who will most likely be sent to kill them in the cellar as retribution. Taigus shares Exal's notes on the runes with Roach. Studying them, Roach is able to determine that they all represent the Infernal letter for A and are magically sustaining each other. He concludes that these symbols are part of a ritual to open an infernal gate below the city, which would cause unspeakable destruction. With so much weighing on their minds, the party spends some vital downtime by gambling in the Seventh Ruby. Hachiman had been looking to make enough money to finally buy a suit of plate armor, while the others were just hoping to have some fun. Lau and Hachiman play the dice game Dragonhunt several times, attracting quite a crowd and the attention of the casino's guards. After an hour of gambling, the party comes out ahead and Hachiman finally buys plate armor in the style of his homeland. Category:Episodes Category:Secrets of Riverdrown Arc